Chapter 15 — If It's Not Closed, It's Open!
What Sebastian Xiao needed now was to plant in batches — to quickly harvest large quantities of low-grade conceptual crops and rapidly accumulate strength.
But it was this very experiment that gave him a pleasant surprise… one so incredible it actually made him want to continue his bloodline.
At the time, Xiao had withdrawn all of his increased attribute values, leaving himself with only a single point in each stat.
Then, a sudden thought struck him:
Could level-1 crops work on him again?
He wanted to see whether the lowest-grade fruits could still grow his body.
His upper limit for physical attributes had already reached 34 points, but after being extracted back into the Dimension Farm, his actual strength had fallen to 1.
The result?
A BUG appeared.
Low-level crops… actually worked again.
His upper limit increased by another point — from 1 to 2.
Xiao was ecstatic. Immediately, his mind raced toward a method to mass-produce strength as quickly as possible.
Even if he restored his other abilities afterward, his upper limit still increased by 0.1 points.
The growth rate was compressed ten-fold, but that was the nature of level-1 conceptual crops.
Turning what was essentially garbage — items that could only restore stamina — into actual attribute points was a discovery beyond belief.
One must know: the fertility and growth cost of low-grade crops were a mere fraction of those of higher-grade ones.
This meant he could flood himself with strength by mass-planting low-consumption, fast-growth crops.
Even better, Xiao could synthesize these values: fusing together small quantities into higher-grade conceptual seeds, reducing the value-compression that occurred when restoring all of his power at once. That way, he could convert his power far more efficiently.
A simple example:
Xiao plants 100 level-1 crops.
After absorbing five points of strength, the returns begin to diminish. From that point on, even if he keeps eating, his upper limit would only rise to 10, and nothing beyond that.
Normally, everything past that would be complete waste.
But Xiao only needs to extract all his stats when his strength reaches around 5 points.
Then, by eating another level-1 crop, he can continue increasing his upper limit.
Through this cycle, after retrieving his power, he'll reach the maximal 10 points.
Once he extracts all 10 points, he condenses them into a first-order crop seed.
After repeating this cycle 100 times, those 100 fruits become 10 first-order crops, which then combine into one second-order conceptual crop.
In a video game, this kind of operation would look like "stepping on your feet to double jump" — utterly pointless busywork.
But conceptual crops operate on entirely different principles.
The difference between one hundred crops worth 1 point each and a single crop worth 100 points… might be greater than the difference between a human and a dog.
Xiao is constantly trading low-grade resources for high-grade ones.
After eating that high-grade crop, he immediately gains a 100-point upper limit — a number that will not be compressed or distorted when restoring his abilities.
Ordinarily, qualitative change requires an astronomical amount of quantitative accumulation.
It's like knowing that a pound of cotton weighs the same as a pound of iron — but to match what iron can do, one would need a mountain of cotton approaching astronomical amounts.
Xiao did not know why his body could act as a synthesizer that directly transformed power, but he could only attribute this cheat-like ability to the Da Luo Dao Fruit.
All he needed to understand was this:
If he kept farming "cotton," he could synthesize it into "iron."
Before discovering this mechanic, Xiao had been playing life on "real-world" difficulty.
Now he might as well be playing Minecraft.
And the difference in cost between low-level and high-level conceptual crops was simply incomparable.
One hundred level-1 crops took one week to grow.
Even if digestion and integration took extra time, the whole cycle would only last a few months.
A second-order conceptual crop?
Its growth time was measured not in months, but years.
Back then, Siheyuan Xiao spent three full years cultivating conceptual crops, yet his Endurance was only around 60-plus points.
Most of the crops he had harvested came from sacrificing nearly all of the "brain mushrooms" grown from his own body — and even so, he had barely reached over 70 points.
This alone showed how difficult conceptual crops were to grow.
But this new method didn't just let him increase strength quickly — it came with an unexpected advantage:
Xiao could now freely modulate how much power he retrieved at any given time.
Picture this:
In battle, the opponent is 100 points stronger than you, but you're sitting on a 1,000-point conceptual crop.
If you don't withdraw it, you'll definitely lose — the gap is too big, and being beaten half to death is miserable.
But if you withdraw the entire 1,000 points… that's just using anti-aircraft guns to shoot mosquitoes. A complete waste.
And with high-level crops taking years to grow, once consumed, even if he had unlimited fertility, there was no way to recover the time spent.
Imagine this:
A student in agricultural school spends months cultivating carefully nurtured crops for the final exam.
On the day of graduation, the next courtyard's chickens break in…
…and eat everything clean.
Yeah. That's the feeling.
Funny?
Not funny at all.
o(╥﹏╥)o
The benefits of dispersed planting became obvious. Whatever level of power he needed, he simply extracted that level.
With conceptual crops growing at various stages, Xiao could be as indulgent and flexible as he wished.
He only needed to retrieve exactly as much strength as necessary for each opponent.
His attributes would never be wasted through compression or qualitative shift.
And normally, Xiao didn't even need much raw physical strength — his superpower did most of the work.
So all of his basic attributes could be invested into growing more conceptual crops.
Xiao's plans became clearer the more he calculated, and he began a large-scale restructuring of the Dimension Farm.
First, he didn't need that much food. He and his family were not starving; a small amount was enough.
He kept only part of the ordinary crops, especially grains and fruit.
Herbs were cut down by half.
The animal pens were reduced to one-tenth their original size.
Each type of livestock was capped at four animals.
If more were born, the Dimension Space would automatically slaughter the fattest one and store the meat.
The fishponds?
Completely eliminated.
Xiao didn't like eating fish much anyway, and the fish he used to harvest were sold immediately, so there was no point keeping them.
T/N:I kept naming him as Sebastian Xiao instead of just Xiao because I wanted to distinguish between other himselves and the main character but there really isn't a need for it. I'll make the distinction only when there are other Xiao's around.